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She focused on the thick trunk of tangled branches that jutted fro her rifle, set it to fully automatic, and took aih the tendrils easily, and sparking as they ricocheted off the wall of the pit beyond Each branch that she severed turned gray instantly By the tiray, and the violent motion above had all but stopped Two or three branches still swayed, so Sa froain
The rope they’d lowered her on still rested against the pit wall, a few ht her eye Another body in a yellow suit, the material sliced into tatters, tainted with fresh blood She waded over to it and flipped the corpse over David’s eyes stared back at her, glassy and ith terror
"Fuck," she , Sa the alien cube where it lay
At the top of the pit she found Faisal’s body, or as left of it He’d been farther from the lip of the sinkhole, and sliced to pieces when the thorny branches went haywire Bits of his flesh hung fro with pieces of his environment suit Yellow and red ornahed into her headset "Come in"
The device had shorted out, she decided, from her fall into the water She ripped it off her head and threw it angrily into the pit
Froiven her Sam closed her eyes and wished for luck as she cracked it open Even after being subed when she fell, it crackled to life and soon a red fire blazed on its tip, dripping sparks
Gingerly, Sa if the now-dead seg away, the rated
After what felt like an hour, Saed back to the barricade at Aura’s Edge The sight of Grillo standing there, waiting for her, was a strange comfort
Sa a bottle of water, when the cavalry arrived Dozens of trucks filled with ar it Grillo’s private army
She stared beyond them, at Darwin’s dirty skyline Unable to focus, she had only a vague awareness of the activity around her A dozen people gathered, clad in environment suits, armed with flares and torches They walked out of her field of vieard the barricade
They were talking about the space elevator Soe of pohen she’d re about it, like so into a surprise birthday party, so her action e Still, it meant the object was connected, somehow, to the alien cord
Nuht to stop shaking Despite everything she’d seen, the only ie that she see at her, accusing her Like Jake’s, in a way She shuddered at the roup returned later Four of the with slow, deliberate steps The people around thee disappeared into one of the newly arrived trucks
The group began to remove their environment suits once the crate was secure Dazed, Saarb before the rear door of her APC was thrown shut, blocking her view
Seconds later she heard the vehicle’s caps begin to whine She swayed in her seat as it lurched into entle rocking of the vehicle lull her to sleep
Chapter 18
Melville Station
5MAY2283
SHE WAS IN the cargo bay, helping unload a shipment of apples, when the station rattled An alarm went off somewhere, one she hadn’t heard before
"What the?" Tania said to no one in particular The people working around her looked as worried as she felt
"Collision?" someone asked
Tania doubted it The vibration seemed to come from the Elevator cord itself "Excuse me," she said, and pushed off for the intercom on the wall Her ined Blackfield’s troopers swarh the station like they had on Anchor
At the wall she steadied herself with a handhold and tapped the activation switch "Tania here Soh a few seconds later "Unknown A vibration rippled up the cord Black Level reported it first, then the farms a few seconds later Now us"
"It started at the shell ship? An explosion or …?"
"Soe, hence that overload alarency disconnect enerated electricity due to friction with the at the stations tapped as a backup source The climbers relied on the source exclusively to e in that would be catastrophic
"Everything’s fine now," Ti normal up there"
Meh Tania’ssiain … "Put all stations on maximum alert All personnel should be required to check in If the aura failed …"
"Already done Commanders will report within the hour"
"Thanks, Tim Keep me posted" Her hand shook as she switched the intercoed on the floor of Rooers
The room, which had been stocked to the brim eaponry by Neil Platz, was all but eear no one knehat to do with That si about the state of the so-called colony Gear and resources depleted, and no one who knehat the hell they were doing
She sighed, exhausted fro, even in brief spans, about the fate of the aircraft she’d sent down to the planet below Crew and craft lost, and they hadn’t even e of Camp Exodus By any measurement the entire endeavor had been a co the cord didn’t exactly help her nerves, but all personnel were accounted for and there’d been no repeats of the event
Failings aside, what bothered Tania more was that she had no idea what to do next The strike tealanced around the nearly empty room "You’d knohat to do, wouldn’t you?" she asked, her voice echoing from the walls She wasn’t quite sure if she’d meant the question for Neil Platz, or for Skyler
The soft sound of a key-card swipe came to her from outside, and the door behind her opened
"There you are" Tiuilt for the unappreciative tone in her words He’d been trying, hard, to lift her from the melancholy she’d fallen into since the failed rescue It seemed wholly unfair to treat hiht chai," he said "Can I sit with you?"
With a sigh she hoped she’d hid, Tania nodded and patted the floor next to her
He handed her one of two ed position "Spared no expense," he said, gauging her reaction
The cup had a twist-on lid and when Tania opened it the wared her like an old friend "This is the good stuff, isn’t it?" she asked
"Ms of it for an early sio"